Systematic Shinobi - Chapter 15.2

…He was back.

Even from outside the training ground, Hinata could hear the loud sounds of training, masculine shouts and the ground trembling slightly beneath her feet.

Hinata had come around yesterday, after she was done with her mission with her team, but Daiki was nowhere to be seen, it seemed he had been on a mission.

Her feet had only idly carried her here after morning training with her team, she hadn't felt like going back home to her clan compound to rest yet.

Reaching behind her, Hinata nervously smoothed down her now much longer hair.

She wondered…how would he react? She hadn't had the time to show him yet because of how busy she'd been with missions and training, the last she'd seen her former classmate had been over a week ago.

'Will he like it?' she found herself wondering.

The last few weeks, she'd taken his words to heart and followed his advice and felt bolder than she ever had before. Kiba and Shino had been very taken-aback with her change at first.

Crude and crass as his words had been, very unlike the Hyuga Clan as a whole, that was nonetheless what made them stick with her, Daiki was bold and upfront, he had felt no need to mince words with her.

He was utterly genuine.

Shaking her head, Hinata swallowed the nervousness building up inside her and forced herself to boldly make her way into the training ground.

As she did, she was just in time to see Daiki shooting forward, spinning and lashing out with a knee strike that shattered straight through a large rock wall about twenty feet high and half a foot thick.

"Still needs work." he muttered to himself, before turning and looking at her, and it was then she noted a few changes that he had gone through since she last saw him.

He was wearing something akin to an armoured pauldron on one of his shoulders, but, shaped like some odd face, was it some form of animal.

…But what stood out more, was that his eyes, a light brown were now a bright crimson red.

He blinked, looking at her oddly, before grinning, newly crimson eyes looking her up and down, "Look who finally took my advice," he noted, "No idea how you grew your hair out so quickly, but you are looking real good now Hinata, definitely working that nine out of ten." he voiced appreciatively.

It took considerable effort on her part, to stop her cheeks from burning red and ducking away from his gaze, "Thank you…" Hinata replied, before giving a small cough, "Uh, Daiki-kun, can I ask what happened to your eyes?"

"Oh these?" He jerked a thumb up to point at his eyes, "Nothin' much, got into a fight with some missing ninja the other day, one of them had these, a pretty sweet doujutsu, so when I killed them, I took the eyes myself and implanted them using my Mystical Palm Jutsu."

Hinata stared.

She…wasn't sure how she should process that. It was, very morbid and horrifying to a degree that he would just replace his eyes with a dead mans. But at the same time, she had to admire the sheer pragmatism and decisiveness that would be needed for such an action.

It did hit a little close to home though, what with the reason why the Branch family of the Hyuga had to be given the Caged Bird Seal.

She decided to put it out of mind.

"Are you busy Daiki-kun?" she asked, moving on, "I was hoping to…do some training with you."

"I'm fine with it, you're the perfect person to test these new eyes of mine out with anyway," Daiki grinned and readily accepted, "Though, don't go thinking that just because you're a total solid nine now, that I'll go easy on you."

She didn't expect him to, she knew well enough, that was not what he was about, but still, his words did make her chest warm with pride and a smile quirk up over her lips, "What if I was a ten?" Hinata challenged, activating her byakugan, feeling her heart flutter as she did, and unzipping her new lavender and white jacket, exposing her torso underneath and wrapped it around her waist.

Daiki, had paid very special attention to her backside and her chest since he started helping her, and so had she. She'd changed up her mesh armour for a slightly more sheer and breathable version, which would have left her breasts very much bare and easy to see through the mesh links, if not for the small black half corset she'd added as well, it hid her large breasts, yet at the same time pushed up her cleavage quite abundantly.

Daiki just stared at her for a moment, before grinning, eyes feasting on her cleavage and giving her a wolf whistle, "Well now you're just making me jealous of Naruto." he shamelessly admitted.

Her smile spread so wide across her cheeks it almost hurt.

In spite of the happiness his words inspired in Hinata, she decided to move first, knowing that she was the one at the disadvantage.

Hinata dashed forward towards the boy, thrusting a palm out towards his lower left stomach with her right hand, she expected him to block with his outer forearm, catching her in the junction to leave her wide open for a counter and planned for it-

But, the taller boy stepped back a single step, easily avoiding her, but didn't counter himself.

That was fine.

She followed through, swinging her left palm out aiming for his right shoulder-

But his arm shot out, catching her wrist and stopping her in its tracks, before she even fully committed.

'What!?' Hinata's eyes widened.

Thinking quickly, she lashed out with a sweep at his legs, he jumped as expected, but did not let go of her arm as she wanted in the process. With her free hand, while he was in the air, she quickly took advantage to lash out at his stomach.
Or, that was what she attempted at least.

Just as her muscles tensed, his knee shot out and caught her in the cheek, letting go of her hand at the same time. Pain flared in her cheek and the force of the blow sent Hinata blasting backwards.

She grinded her feet across the ground, bleeding off the momentum and rubbed her cheek.

Daiki didn't pursue her, instead as he landed, he was grinning at her, wiggling his eyebrows as if to tell her 'come at me'.
That…something was off about how he countered her there.

Daiki was fast for sure, but…

That wasn't just speed.

Ignoring the pain in her cheek, Hinata spread one leg back behind her, before pushing off of it and launching back towards Daiki.

This time, she went for a full out offense.

She wasn't even close to mastering the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms, but individual tenketsu were well within her ability to close one by one.

Chakra surging from two fingertips atop each hand, Hinata launched into a flurry of blows, aiming for his lower body, with his more muscular build, it was the hardest place for him to defend.

Yet…

With each strike, speeding, blurring strikes she could barely keep track of herself, she came up short.

Daiki backpedalled, dodged and deflected each and every strike, the most she managed, was a few glancing blows that never even came close to his tenketsu.

'This…' Hinata didn't know what to think.

But, she wasn't about to give up, she just had to-

Daiki caught her wrist on her next strike, apparently he was done just avoiding her blows.

She tried to break his grip and jump back, but he was much too strong for that and instead, with a jerk of his own wrist, pulled her bodily through the air towards him, a rising knee aiming for her stomach.

Two options flared instantly in her mind, defend, or attack.

She attacked.

She thrust out with her other hand, meeting the knee, two fingers hitting the tenketsu in his knee.

She heard bone crunch.

Agony flared through her fingers as the knee continued on, breaking her fingers on impact, before gagging as it slammed into her stomach.

Hinata was launched backwards through the air and slammed into a large tree, the blow winded her twice over, making it hard to breath, and the tree snapped from how hard she slammed into it and tumbled to the ground.

For a second, she lay there against the snapped tree trunk, slumped over it in a daze, trying to regain her ability to breath.
She shook herself from it quickly, ignoring the pain in her fingers and stomach, Hinata jabbed the pressure points over her airways, opening them up and allowing her to suck in more breath.

She gasped in great big lungful's of air and looked blearily at Daiki, he was rubbing at his knee where she cut off the flow of his chakra, and eyeing it with interest.

…The way he was staring at his knee though.

It was almost as if-

"So that's how the Gentle Fist works, I see." Daiki's eyes widened in some apparent realisation, and her eyes widened as a rushing, salmon coloured chakra seemed to rush from a point in his chest, spreading through his body briefly before disappearing entirely almost as if it was never there…

And suddenly, his chakra was flowing through the tenketsu on his knee once again.

What.

What was going on?

Hinata had never heard of anything like that before. And the only ways she knew for a tenketsu to be unlocked, was if another practitioner of the Gentle Fist undone the block, or wait for the block to fade away naturally.

"Can…can you see the tenketsu?" Hinata couldn't help but gasp out, even as she tried to get her breathing back under control.

"Pretty much yeah," Daiki directed his grin at her, "These eyes can do a lot of things, some of that includes everything those pretty little eyes of yours can, well except that that three hundred sixty degree vision."

His eyes…they were like the Byakugan?

'These eyes can do a lot of things, some of that includes-'

Hinata's eyes widened, a light bulb of realisation occurring for her as well, "…You were predicting my attacks as well."
She'd sparred with Daiki a few times. She knew he was incredibly fast and incredibly strong, but, it was different today. If it was someone who wasn't used to fighting him, they would probably miss it entirely, but not her.

"That to, a bit like the Sharingan actually, the only thing these eyes don't do in that aspect is slow down my perception and let me auto copy shit," he revealed with a shrug, before a massive smirk spread across his face, "Honestly, I've never heard of a doujutsu like this before, so I was thinking, maybe these eyes are a result of an Uchiha and one of your clanmates getting it on."

"That…" Hinata trailed off, she wasn't sure if that would have those kind of results. But then, she'd seen the family records and never seen an Uchiha that married in to the family before, so she couldn't actually say anything on that part.

She shook her head and pushed herself up off of the tree, her stomach protested the action, but she ignored it.

None of this actually mattered right now while they were sparring. Taking advantage of his distraction, Hinata kicked off the tree and lunged at Daiki as far as she could, a palm strike aimed at his shoulder.

As she expected, he easily avoided the blow and let her shoot right passed him. Pushing chakra out of her feet, she stuck herself to the ground before pushing off, spinning around entirely and lashing out with a spinning kick, while she quickly reached for her equipment pouch with her other hand, ignoring the pain from her broken fingers and snatching a smoke bomb out.

Daiki caught her kick in his palm, gripping tightly around her ankle and a split second later, Hinata was bodily picked up and her vision blurred as Daiki spun around with her in his grip.

It was astounding how strong he was, that he could so easily just grab her and toss her around with one hand as if she weighed little more than a feather.

It was a good thing, she expected this.

She flicked her hand, smashing the smoke bomb beneath them, a thick cloud of smoke bursting up around them and then she was airborne as Daiki let go, tossing her.

Then, she once again ignored the pain in her fingers to quickly make the hand seals for the replacement jutsu, a log taking her place, soaring through the air and she shifted her gaze, before bursting back towards the smoke cloud with Daiki inside.

'This should cut off his his prediction ability a bit I hope.' she thought. Few people knew, that, the Byakugan could be selective in what it saw through. It could be used to see through practically anything, but could be used to not see through everything at the same time.

If they couldn't do that after all, when used, the sensory output they had, would be very confusing, they wouldn't be able to even see themselves standing on solid ground.

So if his new eyes were like the Byakugan, he would have to actively shift his vision type to see her.

He would actively have to either see through the smoke itself, or see her chakra to catch sight of her.

It was a small, tiny weakness, but a weakness nonetheless.

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An hour later, Hinata found herself slumped down, leaning forward. She was soaked right through with sweat and her body felt like one massive bruise.

She was utterly exhausted and could barely move a muscle.

"You done much better today," Daiki praised her, stretching out his arms in front of her. Despite his praise, and his clothing being ruffled a bit and ripped in some parts, he looked completely fine and not exhausted at all, "And that's saying a lot considering how much stronger I've got since we last sparred and my new upgrades."

She managed a faint smile at his praise, "…It's thanks to you," Hinata admitted, "I wouldn't have improved this much if you didn't help me out before."

She was ever so grateful he had taken the time to do so. She was, almost astounded at her own progress, she actually managed to land a few hits on him, even with his new eyes.

And since then, she'd won much more spars against Kiba and Shino, and her losses to them were getting more rare as the days went on.

"You've not improved that much," Daiki shook his head, refuting her words, "You've always been this skilled more or less."

"No, I've not," Hinata refuted back, frowning lightly, that didn't make sense, "I wouldn't be doing this much better if I was-"

"It's not that," Daiki cut her off and sat down beside her, "You are getting better no doubt about it babe, but you've never been weak like you think you were. You're just applying what you've got better now that you have the confidence to do so."
"What do you mean?" Hinata's brows furrowed. That, didn't seem like it would make that big a difference.

Daiki shrugged, "Honestly, it's like, no amount of training will make you strong if you don't believe you can be strong, you need to believe you can actually do it, you just set yourself up for failure by letting your own doubts weigh you down," he explained, before waving his hand at her, "It's like your new look."

"…My look?" Hinata tilted her head. She was beginning to get a general gist of what he meant there, before he suddenly changed topics.

"Yeah, like, despite how hot you are, you were hiding away and shy about yourself, didn't believe in your own looks," he continued, then his eyes raked over her body and she found herself almost instinctively pressing her chest out, "See, like that. Now that you know how absurdly attractive you are and how dynamite your body is, you're not shying away and stepping right in. It's the same in a fight, if you don't believe in your ability to win, you shy away, flinch more, give up without giving your all. Because you're not doing that anymore, you feel like you've grown massively, when really you've been strong all along."

…So it was like that? It was the exact same. She hadn't gotten more beautiful, she was just not hiding anymore because she didn't feel the need to now that she knew.

So in the end, it really did all just come down to believing in herself and her worth.

She felt suddenly, as if a weight was lifting from her shoulders that she hadn't realised had been there. Despite her progress, she'd regretted it, how much time she'd wasted being weak…

But as it turned out, she'd never wasted her time at all. Her efforts actually meant something in the end.

"Anyway, enough about that," Daiki said, before suddenly grasping her by the shoulders and bodily turning her around, a yelp of surprise leaving her throat from the bold move, "Let me fix you up a bit, especially those fingers."

The boy reached out and gently grasped her hand, before lifting it up and making a single hand seal, green chakra flaring to life around his hands and being directed into her hand, focused around her fingers.

It was warm, and the pain began to numb away almost instantly. It was funny in a way, that someone like Daiki, who was so headstrong and bold, knew something as delicate as medical ninjutsu.

She then noticed where his eyes were directed and a small smile spread across her lips in amusement, her cheeks warming ever so slightly.

"Did…you need to turn me around like this?" Hinata asked, she was curious if he would try to hide it.

"Nope," he shrugged, not looking away from her chest, "I just wanted to have a look at your cleavage, none of the other girls in our class come close to having tits like these. Might not be for me in the end, but I can admire my own handiwork. right?"

As always, he was so very upfront.

"I don't mind." Hinata admitted, and she didn't at all. She actually quite liked his attention. Shallow it might have been, but Daiki was a strong, handsome boy himself.